Robert Vianello: The Power Politics of Live Television
- The notion of “live” has a multiple function in thinkning about television, although it is usually assumed to be self-evident and unproblematical. It is associated with television as electronic technology; as a period of television history; as a mode of program production; as a description of viewer psychology; and as an attriute specific to television as a mass communications medium.
- “Live” programming – the preponderance of which is usually delineated as the “Golden Age” of TV history – has metamorphized throughout the history of television the live program has evolved according to a configuration of economic, oiticalm aesthetic and technical factors.
- The notion of live is anything but unproblematic. Not only must liveness be understood as an analytical concept specific to the medium, it must also be grasped as an evolving historical practice.
- Live serves the interests of national big-corporate advertising. Live broadcasting installed a system of mass communication capable of creating the mass demand required by the cycle of mass production, distribution, consumption
